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Putin: American political culture cannot differentiate between Austria and Australia

September 5, 2017 - Fort Russ News - Paul Antonopoulos

Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters after his visit to China that he has every right to cut the number of US diplomats in Russia but will do take this option now.

Putin explained that both Moscow and Washington agreed to have an equal number of diplomats in their respective country's, which was not the case as the US had far more diplomats in Russia.

"Strictly speaking, if we talk about full parity, there should not be 455 US diplomats in Moscow but rather minus 155. So, we reserve the right to make a decision also on the number of US diplomats, but we won’t do this now. We’ll keep an eye on how the situation develops further," the president stressed.

Putin said AMerica had the right to cut back on Russian diplomatic staff "but what’s different here is that this was apparently done in an uncivilized manner, and this doesn’t put our American partners in a good light."

"It is difficult to hold dialogue with those people who mix up Austria with Australia. There’s nothing that can be done about this now, that’s apparently the level of political culture of a certain part of the American establishment. The American people are really a great nation if they put up with such a large number of people who have such a low level of political culture," Putin said.

"As for the buildings and facilities (of the Russian diplomatic mission in the US), this is really an unprecedented incident," Putin said. "The American side stripped Russia of the right to use our property. This is a clear violation of Russia’s property rights. That’s why, to begin with, I will instruct the Russian Foreign Ministry to take legal action. Let’s see how the much-lauded American judicial system works."